The Principality has a great advantage over Eastern Roumelia, in that it has secured its independence, and can work out its destiny by itself, without any interference on the part of the Turks or of an European Commission; but both Prince and people are without experience, and there are no popular leaders who have any practical knowledge of government. The people are jealous of their newly-acquired rights, and naturally opinionated and disputatious. The coming elections will no doubt cause great political excitement, and the new Assembly will not be very easily managed, or be likely to win the admiration of Europe by its wisdom. It should be remembered, however, that this lack of experience is the misfortune and not the fault of the Bulgarians, and that Europe has not dealt with them in a way to win their confidence and command their respect. It has left them with a grievance which they can never forget for a moment, which must influence all their political action, and which forces them to maintain intimate relations with Russia, which is not a country where they can learn political wisdom, although it has given them a Constitution which is a model of liberality. There was nothing in the Russian administration of the province which was adapted to prepare them for such a Constitution, or teach them how to conduct a free and liberal government. Prince and people have to begin everything for themselves. Indeed, they are probably worse off than they would have been if there had been no civil administration attempted in the province by the Russians. An army of occupation of any country is unfitted for the organization of civil government. This was attempted on a grand scale in the Southern States of America after the civil war, and under exceptionally favourable circumstances, but all these civil governments, established and fostered by military force, were unsatisfactory while they continued, and disappeared when the army was withdrawn. If this was a work which could not be accomplished by the United States, and by an army which was made up chiefly of civilians, it is not strange that, with all possible goodwill, the Czar of Russia failed to establish a satisfactory civil administration in Bulgaria. He gave them as good a Prince as was to be found in the German market, and as liberal a Constitution as any in Europe. He maintained order and protected all classes as long as his soldiers remained in the country; but the whole administration was necessarily Russian in its spirit and methods, and altogether unlike what it ought to be under the new Constitution. The Bulgarians who were trained under it will have to unlearn much that they have learned, and begin anew, or they will fail to satisfy the people. All this is the misfortune rather than the fault of the nation, and it has a right to expect that Europe will be patient and friendly, while it gains by experience the wisdom which no nation has ever acquired in any other way.